by Pen
Beside him leaning against the truck, Melody Fries puffed on a vaporizer that emitted the scent of something sour and foul to Bertram’s nostrils. “These new young bucks,” she scoffed, “They’re here for big booms, not the message, not the business end of things, not even respect from the other gangs. They’d be just as happy shooting their loads in a rock quarry as they would be an art gallery or a parade. Verne says we must teach them, but I question if they want to be taught.”
They likely would have continued like that if every light in the warehouse hadn’t picked that moment to go out.
Fries had heard more than enough tales from her beaten and bruised comrades to know that this was no ordinary blackout. “Shit,” she muttered, “It’s a raid! Get the lights back on. Now!”
Somewhere in the depths of the warehouse, the sound of a generator coughing to life could be heard, but at the same time, men and women were crying out in pain and or surprise. Pools of light from weapon-mounted lights started to appear in the darkness, moving in erratic, frightened patterns. Then the screams started and there wasn’t even the shadow of a doubt anymore.
The Shade was there.
Hastily installed emergency lighting flickered on just as the first shots were fired. Neither Fries nor LeBlanc had much faith that they would turn the tide, but they might buy them time to escape. Without a word of communication, Fries moved toward the driver’s side of the truck and LeBlanc headed for the passenger’s.
Once, the Corbin gang thought they’d had the Shade figured out. They thought he was like them: a normal man big on the theatrics and making an example. Knocking out the light, they imagined, was just a scare tactic meant to confuse and intimidate. Then they’d seen him.
Out of the corner of his eye, LeBlanc watched as some . . . thing that was all black scales and spindly, wriggling legs rose up, ignoring the dozens of rounds of ammo being pumped into its body, and dragged a screaming man under its bulk, his screams cutting off abruptly as he disappeared.
The part that chilled him was that that wasn’t the most horrible thing he’d seen during a raid by Chi-town’s only known prelate.
On the other side of the truck, what Fries was seeing was less less horrifying and more surreal. A figure had dropped from the rafters and was gliding slowly toward her. It was most definitely a woman; dressed in a leather ankle-length dress with a single slit up the side and about a dozen matching belts with silver buckles wrapped from thigh to bust and soft knee-high boots. Most striking was the hat. She was wearing an honest-to god leather witch’s hat with a big, silver buckle front and center. A domino mask in the shape of a raven did a modest job of hiding her face.
Of course even the hat could have been overlooked thanks to the fact that she was riding sidesaddle atop a giant, black feather. A giant, black feather that was gradually picking up speed as it descended toward her.
Without a second thought, she raised her machine gun and opened up with a burst of fire while at the same time throwing open the truck’s door for cover.
In response, the figure swept the hat off her head, revealing a wild mane of black tresses before she lowered the hat point first. It seemed to expand to block her entire body from view as rounds bounced off it with hollow thuds. Seconds later, the feather struck the door and ripped it cleanly off its hinges, slamming it backward into Fries and sending her sprawling. Her head met concrete and she was out of the fight before it even began properly.
LeBlanc saw it all with wide-eyed disbelief. Not wanting to take a chance, he pulled open the passenger door and fired a grenade round through the cab at his attacker.
She barely looked, flipping the hat around again and catching the grenade round in it. There was no sound. No detonation. The round simply disappeared into the depths of the hat and ceased to be. After which the assailant jauntily donned her headgear once more.
From the voluminous sleeves of her dress, she then produced a foot-long length of tapered wood that looked for all the world like a cartoon character’s version of a magic wand. With a single wave, a flock of blackbirds sprang into existence and immediately swarmed over LeBlanc, pecking and scratching.
He flailed around, screaming and dropping his gun, then fled into the warehouse, best by a screeching avian cloud.
Wrapped in layers of glamour that changed her entire appearance, Candace had to smile to herself. For a first outing, things were going well.
Then she turned around to look for either more gangsters to dispatch or the Shade to confront and immediately thought of the old adage about being careful what you wish for.
He appeared before her as a towering thing—less a man or even a humanoid figure and more an area of space where existence simply failed. There was nothing there, not even shadow and it was disconcerting even for Candace, who felt she had a handle on what was really going on.
“Who are you.” Not a question. Somehow it felt more like a void that demanded the answer so as to fill itself.
Candace steeled herself, pressing her lips together and mentally counting to ten to slow her heart rate. “I didn’t think your illusions included sound. Is there anything else I might have been wrong about, Sergeant?”
The silence he responded with initially was no less terrible than his voice when he did reply. “How did you know I would come here?”
“I doubt you would believe it if I told you.” As much as she was certain the Shade, aka James Lawson, was an illusion caster, Candace didn’t think he was casting her kind of illusions. She’d yet to see proof that anyone in town but herself was capable of using magic. Most likely, she figured her was a descendant: someone whose powers allegedly stemmed from the old super soldier projects performed during World War II over one hundred and thirty years earlier.
“Then I don’t have a lot of reason to believe you when I ask why you’re here rousting the Corbins. For example: whether or not you’re part of a rival gang.” The Shade make a point to loom over her.
Candace stayed her ground. “It’s your choice whether or not to believe me. But the god’s honest truth is that I’m on your side . . . conditionally.”
“Conditionally?” Some of the menacing effect dropped out of his tone thanks to the sheer surprise of what he’d just heard.
She bowed her head. “Conditionally. I’ve been following your career this past year. Don’t worry about your identity—there’s very little chance someone else could do with I did—and I like what you’re trying to do.” That said, she lifted her chin and looking him in the chest where she imagined his real eyes were. “But the past few weeks, I can’t say I like where you’re going. You’re not striking them to disable or disarm anymore. That’s all you need to do thanks to your illusions after all. No, you’re swinging to hurt them. Bad. Some of the guys from the other night might not live.”
Having said her piece, she rocked back on her heels and waited for a response. None came. The hulking shape merely hunched into itself.
After a full minute, Candace had had enough. “Don’t you care!?” she shouted at him. “Or do you think they deserve it? I saw what they did to you and it was horrible—horrible enough that I understand why you started this crusade, but . . . but it’s not horrible enough to justify becoming like them. Or fueling them. The Corbins thrive on escalation. You know that. Do you want things to get better or worse? Or does it matter as long as you get revenge?”
Anger was flowing through her by then, making shaky the concentration she had on maintaining her glamour. Some of her belts seemed to go out of focus or change positions across her body.
The Shade reciprocated by allowing the eye-scrambling void of his appearance soften into a mere form of shadow. “It didn’t start as being about revenge . . . and it shouldn’t become that way either. You’re right. Perhaps I’ve done enough and I ought to give up before I actually do go too far—or before I get to enjoy it.”
Calm started to leak in as Candace heard not the voice of some dark, omniscient god saying those words, but a
man—a defeated man. “I . . . don’t think that’s the answer. It’s not the answer I came here to offer, at least. I figured maybe you needed someone to look out for you—tell you when you were getting off the script, you know?”
After a moment’s thought, she extended her hand. “Plus, I figured that even with your amazing illusions, taking on the Corbins isn’t exactly a one-man job. I’m . . . a little new to this of course. You at lhave a year of vigilante work on me, not to mention your time on the force. That’s why I’m willing to accept a junior partnership. Just call me your Apprentice.”
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SECRETS IN THE SANDS
Michael Ivan Lowell
MOJAVE DESERT
OUTSIDE OF VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Ward set them down at the target location.
There was just one problem. All that was there was a big empty field of desert surrounded by twelve-foot-high barbwire fencing. No sign of an elaborate computer system used to remotely control armies of drones all across the country. Not that he really wanted to find such as system. Or the army of drones. But the boss had given his orders, so here he was.
His wings folded behind him as the dust cloud ignited by their transparent exhaust settled over the two of them. Paul Ward was the superhero known as Spider Wasp. He had a kind, boyish face. Decked out in his midnight-blue armor with orange bug-eye lenses and orange mechanical wings, he held more than a passing resemblance of his media-given heroic moniker.
Ward unstrapped his partner from the safety harness that had bonded them together for the long flight. She was the prettiest girl in any room she entered. Pretty enough she made him nervous. A world-class spy with a figure that would make Jessica Rabbit blush. Used to having every eye in the room fixated on her, maybe it was no coincidence that she had invented a suit to turn herself invisible.
Rachel brushed the dirt off her all-white, skin-tight cat-suit that left nothing much to the imagination, as the sun beat down. “This place looks as empty as my bank account.”
Rachel Dodge, or Stealth as she was known to the outside world, was a statuesque brunette whose life had evolved from high school dropout, to stripper, to college student, back to stripper, to college graduate, to CIA analyst, to CIA agent, and now . . . to sidekick to the world’s first and most famous superhero of them all: the Revolution.
The man who had sent she and Ward on this wild tumbleweed chase.
“Really?” Ward said, feeling his cheeks flush as he caught himself leering at her innocent actions. Why did every move the woman made strike him as sexual? Maybe he was turning into a pervert!
Or maybe it was just that suit. He was never going to get used to it. “Um . . . why didn’t you say something?” he stammered, trying to break the spell of his own thoughts, peering down, pretending to check his orange wrist-canisters. Anything to keep his eyes off of Rachel. “I’m a hell of a catch. I’ve got cash to burn on a lovely lady.”
She smirked and strolled past him. “I find one, I’ll let her know.”
They walked a bit further, but Rachel was getting nothing on her phone-sized Remote Digitial Scanning Device or RDSD, as she scrolled through its numerous settings.
“You think it’s shielded, or did Lantern send us to the wrong place again?” Ward circled his gaze around the dusty field and remembered being ambushed inside Freedom Rise a few months back. It was not a memory he was eager to relive. “And in that case,” he added warily, “where are the homicidal robots?”
“If it is being shielded, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen—which would actually make some sense, given what we think they have here.”
“Don’t even see any drones on that thing?” Ward was having a hard time letting the homicidal robot thing go. Then he noticed Rachel had stopped walking.
“Nope. There’s balls-loads of energy coming out of it, though.”
Ward chuckled. Balls-loads. “Out of where?”
Rachel pointed straight ahead.
All Ward saw was more empty desert. “You mean the big, non-descript, abandoned ant farm or whatever this is?”
“It just looks abandoned,” Rachel said, still eyeing her device. “The meter keeps climbing the closer we get.”
“Closer to what?” he asked, still seeing nothing but lots and lots of brown dirt.
A rumble rolled under their feet. They both froze.
“Did you feel that?” Ward asked.
“Hold on!” Rachel barked excitedly as she glared into the RDSD. “I’m getting something. Over there!” She pointed to their three o’clock, and Ward followed her as she sprinted ahead.
“Earthquake?” Ward asked as they jogged, his voice jumping in his chest.
The ground rang metallic beneath their feet, and they skidded to a stop. “What the hell?” Ward leaned down and scraped the dirt away with his dark-blue titanium glove, and below the first layer his fingers touched steel. “There’s a door here!”
“Money shot!” Rachel grinned. “There’s got to be a handle or something.”
Ward searched for it.
The ground shook again.
And again.
A third rumble, this time closer, stronger, knocked Ward over from his crouching position and caused Rachel to stumble.
“What the fuck is that?” Rachel said.
They both scanned the desolate area in every direction. Nothing had moved. Nothing was moving.
Ward glanced over at Rachel and shrugged just as—
The earth exploded behind her.
Rising out of the ground, ripping a twenty-foot-wide gash in the earth, was what looked like a giant metal worm. Its snout breached the soil like the Hindenburg rising from hell. It rose above them in a whiplash spasm, metal shimmering in the sun down its long segmented and perfectly cylindrical sides. This was some kind of massive machine. It was as wide as an airliner and as long as a subway train. Rachel dove toward Ward as the mechanism rose above them, its shadow covering their forms.
“I hate it when I’m right!” he yelled.
Ward grabbed her and shoved her behind him, but in so doing he took his eyes off the monstrosity. When he saw it again, his breath caught in his throat.
The long machine was slamming down toward him, half blocked by the sun. Ward cursed himself for not having thought to activate the sun-shade mode of his visors before now, and he braced for impact. Never taking his eyes off the machine, Ward stood over Rachel and yelled, “Blink out!”, but she was already invisible.
He dove for cover—just as the massive hull of the machine slammed into the earth beside him. The tremor of its impact was like a small quake.
“That was close! Leslie put some serious servos in this reinforced suit. I’m sure I would have been fine, anyway!” he shouted at her wherever she was.
“Don’t test that theory!” came her disembodied voice.
Ward rose again, realizing the giant machine had already spasmed back up into the air and was plummeting down toward him again. He could only hope Rachel was long gone. He glared about, but there was no sign of her. No footprints, nothing. At least he knew she hadn’t been crushed.
And then he realized he had once again lost track of the worm.
He glanced up.
Just in time to see the giant robot closing on him, impossibly huge and incredibly close.
Ward held his arms up. There was no way to escape. Leslie’s new servos had better be as strong as she’d advertised or he was about to be as squashed as a bug on a semi’s windshield.
“I’m gonna test it!” he yelled.
The machine slammed down on him with tremendous force. The impact thundered through him, but he caught the thing in his hands. Or rather, he blocked it, and his titanium gloves punctured the robot’s steel shell with a great crying squeak of wrenching metal.
Ward felt his shoulders dislocate as the pressure pushed them grotesquely out of socket and then pop back into place. His stomach lurched from the pain. The full weight of the th
ing was crushing down on him, and he knew he was about to be smashed like a grape.
He pushed with all his might and threw the giant thing off to the side as the servos screamed inside his helmet and his hands ripped free of the metal.
Damn, he was strong now!
The ground shuddered from its impact, dust ballooning around it.
And for the first time he caught a good look at it. It was fat and metal and segmented. And just before he could ask himself any questions about what purpose those segments might serve, the entire worm spun around, its head aiming right for him. The end of the worm flowered into a hideous mouth of shimmering, spinning steel blades. They sliced at Ward with blinding speed.
“Oh, crap!”
Ward fired the wings, which only had a split second to partially unfold before they sent him careening out of the path of the blades and cartwheeling into the dirt.
He breathed a sigh of relief that Rachel had not been in his path. In his panic he had forgotten to even warn her. How ironic would it have been to have saved her from the giant worm only to end up killing her as he made his own escape?
“Stay clear, Rachel!” Ward yelled to her, wherever she was. And then his heart skipped a beat as the worm launched up from its position on the ground, half of its massive steel body arcing into the air, slamming back down, as the blossoming snout rushed toward him, blades spinning. It was like some kind of hideous giant drill.
The gruesome mouth closed on him. Ward unfurled the wings, aimed his wrist-canisters, and fired two disabling darts right into the heart of the enormous yawning maw.
Ward launched into the sky as the worm collided with the spot on the ground where he had been standing only seconds before. Blue electricity sparked across the robot’s front segment as it shorted out.
Ward grinned. Spider Wasp: 1—Big Stupid Worm Thing: 0.
“Alright, gorgeous, I think it’s okay to come out and play again,” Ward called out, unsure where Rachel had escaped to. She reappeared right below him, and he landed next to her. When his feet touched down he heard a metal clang and realized that somehow they’d ended up on the hidden door again.
